Method and apparatus for face recognition

Abstract

Methods and apparatus are disclosed which are useful in rapidly verifying a person's identity at a distance, and / or identifying a person with a high degree of certitude, from a pool of other persons, using an innovative technique to compare facial images. Such a person (Candidate) may voluntarily consent or cooperate to have his facial image recorded, or the Candidate's facial image may have been recorded involuntarily. Typically, an image recorded for identification purposes will be a facial image of a Candidate present before a camera or other image procuring device, to be compared with a previously stored Reference facial image, as in a building lobby, for identification purposes. The Candidate's facial image is recorded voluntarily but the Reference image is not in the Candidate's possession. Reference images may be stored as Reference templates in an image storage database (such as developed by a governmental agency), or in an entrance lobby to the Candidate's apartment, or in a camera memory installed in a cockpit door of a transit vehicle to prevent access by hijackers. For verification purposes, the Reference facial image may be a hard copy, for example, a driver license, membership card, or passport in the Candidate's possession. A specially modified digital camera significantly reduces the requirement for a large memory to store templates, and makes it feasible to search for and identify rapidly (at distances up to 500 feet) suspects among a group of persons passing into or through such facilities as terminals, vehicles, customs stations, malls, ramps, etc. It is feasible to combine face recognition technology with other biometrics that express the degree of sameness as a numerical match score.

Description

FIELD OF THE INVENTION This invention relates to biometric methods, systems and equipment for the newly recording of an image, for example a facial image, in connection with anti-terrorist or security activities, for storing the recorded image information in greatly minimized form, and rapidly searching for a match by comparing same with previously stored image information. In the physical security industry (and in this Application) a biometric record characteristic of a person, such as a facial bitmap, fingerprint, retinal pattern, iris pattern, etc., is termed a ‘template’, which is also known as a “slither curve”. The method to generate a template from a biometric image is termed ‘Autocorrelation’ (AT). BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1) 1988. First discovery of the potential and use of the AT method (by the assignees to this application) is described in Final Report DEH-TR-89-01 Human Remains Identification Study under contract No. F08635-88-C-0223 submitted in 1989 to the U.S. Ai...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

The specially modified Camera described in this Application significantly reduces the requirement for a large memory to store templates, and makes it feasible to search and identify rapidly (at distances up to 500 feet) for suspects among a group of persons passing into or through such facilities as airport, rail and bus terminals, aircraft, ships, loading docks, customs stations, malls, ramps, etc. To increase likelihood of achieving identification, it is also feasible in certain circumstances to combine (or fuse) face recognition technology with other biometrics that express the degree of sameness as a numerical match score, such as the knuckle ID apparatus described U.S. Pat. No. 5,594,806 and assigned to the Assignee of this application.

Problems solved by technology

Its drawback is that it involves the active participation of the 100 or so subjects over a long time period, and requires tedious labor to tally, record, and plot the graph.

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